


Blood Brothers

by Tammany



Category: Sherlock - Fandom
Genre: BFFs, Friendship, Gen, Paternal Lestrade, Post-Season/Series 03, Sherlock & John - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 21:43:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4641213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This starts with Sally goading Sherlock. I like Sally--but she does goad Sherlock, as he goads her. This time Greg has to run interference, leading to a long walk with a socially backward consulting detective who doesn't always understand his own heart, much less the mystery of other people.</p><p>This is not Johnlock. I'm sorry--it is about passionate, unquestionable love between Sherlock and John, but it's almost by definition about all the ways they adore each other that are not about a slash relationship. That's not intended as criticism--it's just a story written through the lens of my own relationship with those two in canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood Brothers

The first clue Greg had that something was wrong was when he heard the sound of voices in the evidence room at the station. There was a tone he knew too well—one most of us learn at some point or another. It was the jeering strike of the playground bully, the smug stab of the Queen Bee, the taunt of the lad who’s no better than he should be as he rips into the scholar walking with his violin case in his hand.

Then Sherlock’s voice, higher and more furious than the man usually allowed himself to be these days, raging back—raging in the way most people had learned not to fall into. It only makes it worse. But, then, Sherlock was smart, but he was never all that wise.

Greg clenched his jaw and started the walk down the corridor to the evidence lock-up. He could hear Sally, now, her voice gone bitter and mean.

“Yeah, right, Hat-man. Lost your little Robin side-kick, then? What do you do with the long nights, now he’s married with kids?” She managed to put a twist on that last phrase that suggested sexual things Greg could barely figure out how to say with full paragraphs. Certainly that being married with kids was a vast and crucial change from whatever had once been “the norm.” Then the final hit: “Not your arse-kissing bitch now, is he?”

God, she’d made that sound filthy. Made Sherlock sound filthy, too—like some dirty old prison lag whose former bitch has been paroled and returned to the straight life, out of reach of retribution.

How the hell did she do that with just a twist of her voice?

“It’s not like that,” Sherlock snarled. “You know it’s not like that. John was never gay. We were never….” He broke off, and Greg winced. The poor bastard just did not know when he was digging his own grave. He shouldered through the door hoping to cut the younger man off.

No such luck. Sherlock raged on. He was standing straight and tall, fists clenched at his sides, eyes burning as he fired back at Sally and two of the constables who’d suffered for years under the lash of his tongue. “John and I were never lovers,” he spat. “It was never like that. John always liked women. He always liked women better than…” his voice shook, and Greg could tell he’d finally—finally!—realized the insinuations he was making too easy for the others. He stopped and tried again. “We were friends. That’s all we ever were.”

Sally smirked. But she wasn’t stupid. She knew Greg’s arrival had ended the game. “Whatever,” she said with the kind of smug, patronizing dismissal that would leave Sherlock sliced to the bone and bleeding without Greg being able to find an official reprimand to cover the nebulous offense.

Greg glowered at her, watching the two constables shift to stand behind her, their own eyes suggesting that if this came down to a face-off between the DI and his sergeant—they were going to stand or fall with the sergeant.

This was what Sherlock got for years of abusive vanity. Greg knew it. He knew it was what he himself got for years of protecting Sherlock and John from the petty revenge the members of his team could have extracted from their rivals. He wasn’t even particularly sure it was unfair that they were hitting back like this. Sherlock had always been savage and mean and far too full of himself, and his team had endured the sort of thing that was often phrased as “hostile workplace” when it was written up in complaints to the authorities. He’d have felt less compassion for Sherlock if he hadn’t understood that the man was suffering something the taunts evoked—but did not actually describe.

“Stow it,” he growled to the three Met officers. “I’m not going to report you for conduct unbecoming. You and Sherlock have all been out of line for years, him as much as you or more. But you’ve got the wrong end of the stick, and for the love of God… I don’t know what’s worse, to bait a gay who’s lost his lover—or to miss the mark entirely and still keep on at it.”

Sally made a face at him. They’d argued before, with Sally finding it hard to accept that the two “Baker Street Boys” were not pioneer members of the Loyal Order of Consulting Fairies--ponces of the finest quality. Greg met her glare and shook his head, not backing down. At last she shot a disbelieving eye at heaven, gathered the two constables with a quick gesture, and stalked out of the room.

Sherlock started to call something after her. Greg, knowing with dead certainty that whatever he said would be “provocative” in the very worst meaning of the word, growled, and shifted as he stood, slamming his shoulder against Sherlock’s arms. “Shut it!”

Sherlock glared down at him, eyes narrow and hard, hiding hurt and confusion far too well. If Greg had not already understood, he never would have been brought to do so by any sign of Sherlock’s. “She’s just been cited in a divorce case. Adultery. I only wanted to point out the—“

“You wanted to hit back.”

“One can hardly consider the accurate conveyance of facts—“

“Shut it, Sherlock. You wanted to get the knife in and twist it.”

“Given her accusations were baseless, as mine would not—“

“Sherlock—did no one ever tell you that being right is not the same thing as acting right?”

Sherlock blinked and frowned. “What?”

“Just because you know better, or know something that will let you ‘win,’ or you’re right and someone else is wrong, doesn’t mean it’s always the right thing to go shouting it to the world. Especially when you do it to be a vicious sonofabitch.” He could see Sherlock ready to argue, and kept ploughing on. “And especially when every single person there will know you were just doing it to get back at someone. Hell, even if you’re right, you end up looking wrong. And they end up looking friggin’ brill. You know? You’ll just make her look brighter and cooler and a lot more right than you, OK? So shut the fuck up and come out with me for a coffee at the coffee van.”

Sherlock pouted. “You could have resolved the question years ago, you know. Sergeant Donovan ought to know John never…” He trailed off, looking forlornly at his own toes. “You could have told her that much,” he added, sounding lost and childish.

Greg sighed. “No, sunshine, I couldn’t,” he said. “Not that I haven’t tried. Come on, be real. You told everyone. John told everyone. I’ve told everyone. And no one believes it because—hell. Look, just come get coffee. We’ll talk.”

They waited long enough for Greg to put on his overcoat, scarf, and gloves, then headed down the pavement, jogging and zigzagging to get to Lestrade’s favorite food truck. Once there they ordered two tall coffees and Greg ordered a doughnut to go with, then went to lean their bums on the stone windowsills of the flanking buildings. They drank silently, watching the people go past. It took a good half hour before Sherlock spoke—but, then, Greg was used to the other man after all these years. He’d expected the wait.

“We weren’t lovers,” Sherlock said at last, staring into his coffee cup.

“I know.”

“It’s not just that John—though he said so often enough. He isn’t gay.”

“I know.”

“It wasn’t just some sneaky, clever way of trying to avoid saying he was bi, either. He isn’t like that.”

“I know.” Greg smiled. Of all the people to indulge in that kind of social game playing, John Watson was the least likely suspect. “When he says he isn’t gay, he means he's straight. Full stop. Maybe even with an exclamation mark for full measure.”

“Mmmmmf.” Sherlock sounded sulky and self-pitying. “So many dreadful girlfriends.”

Greg nodded, having met his own share of John’s mistakes. “Had kind of primitive standards of ‘girlfriend.’ Once she passed the biological check-list for female, he was pretty content if she was fit and remotely interested.”

Sherlock humphed again.

“You know, sunshine, that attitude never does help make your argument,” Greg said, ruefully. “I know you weren’t lovers, and you know you weren’t lovers. But so help me, you sound like a jealous boyfriend when you sulk like that.”

Sherlock scowled. “It wasn’t like that. I just—how could he? They were dreadful! And so many other things we could have been doing instead of John panting off after them!”

Yeah, Greg thought mournfully, no matter how straight both men might be, Sherlock could not hear how it sounded.

“Sherlock—look, mate. I understand—I do. Just because you weren’t sexually jealous, though—hell. You were jealous. And it shows. And it argues against you to most people, because most people forget.”

Sherlock frowned and looked at him under long lashes, a sidewise glance that asked and doubted at the same time. “Forget what?”

“You know—what it’s like,” Greg said. He looked into his own coffee and said, “We all get it, sometime or another. But people forget, because it hurts and it’s embarrassing. But we do—we all know.”

Sherlock growled his impatience. “Explain.”

Greg drank down his last coffee instead, and began walking toward Westminster. He wasn’t as tall as Sherlock, but he had a steady, easy stride developed from his time as a constable. Sherlock fell in beside him, radiating annoyance.

A block along, Greg started.

“For me it was Joey Brannigan. We met in third year. We were both eight, right? He was missing a tooth, with another on the way out. He could spit through the hole left by the tooth that was out. He was brilliant on the jungle gym. We fought on the playground and both ended up in the office with the principal. His mum worked in a laundry and mine was a manager at a Tesco. Neither of us had a da. He liked Star Wars. I did, too. He wanted to be Luke. I wanted to be Han, but I said I wanted to be Chewie because everyone knew Han wanted to get into kissy stuff with Leia and I wasn’t going to admit that—and Chewie was cool, right?”

Sherlock stared at him, brows knitting. “Are you quite all right, Greg? Perhaps your coffee was contaminated? Drugs in the powder on your doughnut?”

“Shut up, Sherlock. Just listen, yeah?”

The other man sniffed, but fell silent.

“So the next thing I know, we’re best friends,” Greg continued. He’d dropped his coffee cup into a trash bin, and now stuffed his fists into the pockets of his coat. “We went everywhere together. Did everything together. If we had to be apart we were wild until we could get back together. We thought we were invincible. Together we could sass teachers, and argue with our mums, and get one over on Joey’s bruvver, Mickey…” Greg’s voice was slipping deeper into his home dialect, moving from educated professional’s Estuary to a denser argot closer to the streets of Brixton and Herne Hill. “Us two, the both of us, we were soddin’ wicked, yeah? Brill. Ten minutes around us and girls ran away squealing, and we were young enough and dumb enough to think that made us something pretty damned hot. We cut our own thumbs and rubbed them together and swore to be blood brothers forever, yeah? Because if you share blood, you're one blood forever after. We’d fight any boy on the playground and run away from any girl like she had cooties. We’d tell each other bleedin’ stupid jokes, and laugh till we peed ourselves—and that’s not an exaggeration. Two little boys lying on the pavement wet as babbies.” He shook his head, and said, softly, “I don’t think I ever loved anyone like I loved Joey Brannigan.”

Sherlock frowned and sniffed. “What does this have to do with me?” he grumbled.

“Sherlock, look—everyone has a friend like that—sometime. If they’re lucky. A first friend. A best friend. Someone who just—moves in to your life and changes everything. And everyone, at some point, has to deal with the boundaries that go with it. Yeah?”

“What?” Sherlock sounded caught between confusion and recognition.

“Look—that kind of thing. That kind of friend—you want to breathe in when your friend breathes out. You want it to be perfect, and forever, and the two of you for all eternity on your bikes, screaming as you ride down the hill together. Together, forever, you two against everyone else in the whole damned universe. But it always ends. It’s built in, you know?”

Sherlock made a small, querulous sound. “Don’t be stupid, Lestrade. None of this means anything to me.” He sniffed his indifference.

Greg, though, was wise in the ways of Holmeses. He sighed. “You know what I’m talking about. You’ve got the brains to see it. You can’t be like that. Not forever. You’re different people—you have to be different people for it to work in the first place. But that means there are ways it’s not that perfect, eternal pair, yeah? You like chocolate. He likes vanilla. You like footie, he loves rugger. He backs Arsenal, you’re for West Ham. You get into fights. Usually you make it up before the day’s out, but sometimes it sets something off and you can’t stop, and it goes on for weeks, and you hate each other. He makes new friends. You do. You get into dust-ups outside Tesco’s and your mum calls his mum and then they fight, and it looks like you’ll never make up. And all the time something’s eating you from the inside out, because he’s gone—your best friend is gone. He hates you, now, but you still love him, and you can admit it in the dark at night, and cry in your pillow and hope your mum doesn’t hear.”

“Lestrade,” Sherlock’s voice was uncomfortable, now. But Greg knew him—and knew sometimes the only way to show Sherlock what he felt was to show him what Greg felt. To hold up a photo and say, “Look at it—does this remind you of anything, sunshine?” So he went on.

“Or one of you starts dating before the other, yeah? Finds a girl. She’s the stupidest thing. You can’t see what he sees in her. And he doesn’t want to go out riding on his bike anymore, and he doesn’t want to go to a flick at the ciné anymore. He just wants to goop around with this stupid cow, snogging in the bus seat and grabbing her bum behind the trash skip in the back alley. And you hate her. She’s not worth his time. And he’s treating you like you’re a pain in the arse—your best friend!”

They walked along, then. A block here. A block there. Greg would turn them when they got too far from the Met. His car was back in the car park, and he didn’t want to leave it overnight. But sometimes it was easier to get Sherlock to talk—and to think—with his legs in motion.

“What then,” Sherlock said at last. “What if he finds a girl who’s not just a cow? And even you can see why he loves her?”

“And he gets married? And has kids?”

“Perhaps…”

“Then sometimes you just have to be grateful he still loves you,” Greg said. “Because life’s too big for anyone to own anyone else.” He walked on, then added, “It’s suffocating, you know—to get what you want in that first crazy friendship. If you never grew. Do you want to live John’s life?”

“He can make his own choices,” Sherlock grumbled.

“No—not my point. Do you want to live his life? Be a doctor. Go work in clinic most days? Be married to Mary? Play with the baby?”

Sherlock snorted disgust beyond words.

“Yeah, see? But he likes it, so long as he gets a run out with you, too, right? And you—you think he really wants to live your life? Not the one you let him see—the whole life? The secret connections, the spying, the stuff Mycroft and I know that you never tell John unless you have to? Is that the life he really wants?”

Greg could feel Sherlock turning his real life—his life of shadows and secrets—over in his mind. The criminal lairs, the slums, the terrorists, the killers…the homeless kids and the gang lords with their guns and knives…

“No,” he said. “John doesn’t want that, except as something he helps fight sometimes. But he doesn’t want to do the legwork to be part of it—what you need to really understand it.”

“And do you want to give it up?”

Sherlock scowled, and strode on.

Long after, under the glare of the street lights, with the traffic passing by in a parade of headlights and horns, Sherlock said, “How about a curry?”

“I could manage to wrap myself around a curry.”

“There’s a good place two blocks from here.”

“I know, sunshine. I go there for lunch. My treat?”

Sherlock grinned agreement. They crossed the road and headed for the Mogul Palace.

“I’m not gay, though,” Sherlock said. “John’s not gay.”

“No. You’re best friends,” Greg agreed. “Like I said—people forget.” He didn’t add that they forget what it was like to bleed. But, then, he didn’t think he had to.

Sherlock sighed, then, and said quietly. “It’s a lot more boring since he left.”

“I know, sunshine,” Greg said. “I know.”

"What happened to Joey?"

"Got married. I was best man. He was best at mine. Had kids. Moved to Manchester. Roots for Man U these days."

"You're still friends?"

Greg sighed. "It's different. But--yeah. Forever. Blood brothers."

Sherlock grunted softly, and fell silent.

Silent, they pressed the pain and blood of their equal losses together--blood brothers. Then they ate their meal in moody but tender friendship, accompanied by the memories of an eight-year-old boy with one tooth out and another on the way, and a short little Army doctor with a limp and an aluminum cane who was in need of a roommate if he was to survive in London much longer.


End file.
